Karen Youth Transitions: Traditional Dance as a Vehicle for Identity Construction and Social Engagement

RATIONALE AND PURPOSE: Thousands of ethnic Karen people from Burma have been relocated from refugee camps to Western countries because of persecution at home. For the Karen, maintaining their language and traditional dance, passing the skill of weaving on to the next generation, and participating in cultural celebrations are of key importance. Whiteford and Townsend (2011) discussed the need to participate in occupations that support social and cultural structures, contributing to personal and collective identity construction. This poster presents a study of Karen teenage youth who regularly participated in traditional Karen dance even though they had left refugee camps and relocated to the United States when they were too young to have participated in this activity. The focus was on personal perceptions of the meaning of this occupation to these youth and its relation to individual and collective identity construction and social engagement with their own and external communities.

METHOD: Data were gathered through 10 semistructured interviews that were analyzed qualitatively, exploring themes that occurred across interviews.

RESULTS: Thematic analysis of the interviews resulted in four major themes: (1) Culture = History, History = Culture; (2) “It’s the Thing That Makes You Who You Are”; (3) “So the Karen Won’t Be Perished”; and (4) Social Inclusion/Uniting as Karen.

Culture = History, History = Culture: Participants talked at length about their need to learn their cultural tradition of dance and about how the dances taught them about the history of their people and the struggles they had been through over many decades: “If we don’t know our culture, we don’t know where we are from, and we don’t know what our parents have been through, also our history.”

Garroe Wah, “It’s the Thing That Makes You Who You Are”: It was hard for the participants to answer questions about what it is to be Karen. They were so immersed in their own culture, it was hard for them to define it. But many identified signifiers of their culture such as their clothing and their language.

“So the Karen Won’t Be Perished”: This quote sums up the majority of perspectives on why they danced: “Now we are here. We don’t have to fight by gun or, you know, knife or something like that, but we have to fight by our culture to show who we are.”

Naye Soe, Social Inclusion/Uniting as Karen: Almost all of the participants talked about the enjoyment they experienced being with each other and teaching people outside the Karen community about their culture. Their comments also suggest a sense of internal strength they acquired through recognition of the value of their heritage that helped them navigate more confidently in their external environment.

CONCLUSION: These interviews revealed how participation in the occupation of dance within their U.S. context positively influenced these Karen youths’ identity construction and maintenance, supporting the idea that “people develop and reinforce their identities by habitually performing through occupation, within particular social contexts” (Huot & Rudman, 2010, p. 74). This study demonstrates the importance of participation in culturally relevant occupations. When individuals or groups of people are unable to participate in culturally important occupations, occupational therapy practitioners can support participation by identifying barriers and working to remove them and can recognize the role occupational therapy can play in facilitating culturally important occupations to enhance a sense of belonging and purpose, thereby improving quality of life.

References

Huot, S., & Rudman, D. L. (2010). The performances and places of identity: Conceptualizing intersections of occupation, identity and place in the process of migration. Journal of Occupational Science, 17, 68–77. https://doi.org/10.1080/14427591.2010.9686677

Stephenson, S. M., Smith, Y. J., Gibson, M., & Watson, V. (2013). Traditional weaving as an occupation of Karen refugee women. Journal of Occupational Science, 20, 224–235. https://doi.org/10.1080/14427591.2013.789150

Whiteford, G., & Townsend, E. (2011). Participatory occupational justice framework (POJF 2010): Enabling occupational participation and inclusion. In F. Kronenberg, N. Pollard, & D. Sakellariou (Eds.), Occupational therapies without borders: Vol. 2. Towards an ecology of occupation-based practices (pp. 65–92). New York: Elsevier.